1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the marketing of real estate and particularly to staging of furniture to render the setting attractive to potential buyers.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
In the present day real estate market any edge a seller can obtain for enhancing the attractiveness of a residence for sale is important in that it can act to make the difference between the residence languishing on the market or attracting fast and multiple offers. Traditionally, model homes and condominiums have relied on relatively expensive traditional furniture to set the decor for different living quarters of a house placed on the market. In recognition of the need for selecting attractive furnishings to render the real estate more attractive to would be buyers, Barb Schwartz of Seattle, Wash., in 1972, introduced what is termed staging when furniture pieces are selected to arrange in the living area to render properties more attractive. From this an entire industry of, “stagers”, has grown up where they hire themselves out as experts temporarily to furnish a property in a manner that will be appealing to the purchasing public. Staging has been a growth industry since its inception to the point where it is now employed in some 5% of United States residential sales. Data shows that properties which are staged sell faster and at a higher price. A typical service staging with presentable traditional furniture can run $700.00-$800.00 per listing per month. Thus, hereto for broker or owner has been faced with the dilemma of being forced to either pay the high fees associated with staging traditional furniture or incurring the risk of a slow sale or possibly no sale at all. Consequently, there is a great demand for anything that can be done to reduce the capital investment for the props and reduce the labor and transportation costs for staging pieces and the display thereof.
The furniture presently used by stagers is either purchased or rented at a high price for some combination thereof and is sometimes reused. Traditional furniture, such as tables, couches, chairs and the like are relatively expensive and of considerable weight and size which renders the furniture sets themselves inconvenient to move and store. Traditional furniture is typically style specific and thus does not lend directly to use for various styles of architecture and tastes. When it goes out of style or becomes worn, it will readily be condemned to long term storage or a landfill. Thus, there persists a problem in seeking to stage a house in a convenient and inexpensive manner. The problem is more acute due to the different styles of property being displayed throughout the market and the differing tastes of the would be buyers.
In an unrelated art, many efforts have been made in the past to provide modular furniture which may be made up of individual modules connected together by different styles of releasable joints. Other efforts have led to the proposal that a piece of model furniture be constructed of foldable cardboard material which is constructed of various panels foldable into a closure with the panels having photographs or other graphics thereon to simulate traditional furniture. A device of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,410 to Davies.
Such devices, while satisfactory for their intended purpose, do not lend themselves to assembly in a compound configuration to form a mannequin to simulate particular furniture pieces and which may be draped by a curtain, cover or the like to faithfully exhibit the desired look.
In unrelated art, it has also been proposed to provide a knock down storage unit constructed from foldable one piece blanks which incorporate interlocking flaps so that the blanks may be folded to form a closed structure with individual horizontal compartments for receipt of items to be stored and which are dedicated to simulate specific furniture piece to thus conceal the true purpose of the storage unit. A device of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,463,997 to Densen. While satisfactory for storage units, such devices are relatively complex to manufacture, cumbersome to erect and are each limited to simulating only a specified furniture piece.
Thus, there exists a need for a system of utilizing a set of collapsible props which may be conveniently erected and assembled in different ways to form selected profile frameworks to act as mannequins which may be draped or otherwise covered to simulate pieces of furniture such as a table, couch, chair or the like.